


The Man Who Always Stared

by I_ship_faster_than_fedex_975



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, i don't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 15:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4396649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_ship_faster_than_fedex_975/pseuds/I_ship_faster_than_fedex_975





	The Man Who Always Stared

"Bye, Armin! See you tomorrow!" 

 

I wave to the blonde, taking my leave from the warm café. I start to walk to the sidewalk with a smile on my face, but stop short. I turn back around, wanting to ask Mikasa, one of my co workers, if she could walk home with me. We practically lived right next to each other. 

 

Now, I'm not a wimp or anything, but there's always this...man that I always catch staring at me. Every day when I'm coming home from work I always catch him casting me a sad glance as I pass by. After about a month of that 'coincidence' I decided to bring the matter up with Mikasa, one of my best friends. 

 

Mikasa, being _very_ overprotective, practically dragged me out of the shop the day I told her, telling me to point out the potential stalker. I did and when we walked up to him, both her and the man froze, sharing some sort of...look. I look of recognition? Sadness? Whatever it was, and whatever it meant, it made Mikasa grab onto me, dragging me past the man who I always caught staring. 

 

Still standing in the cold afternoon air, I decide that no, I'm not going to ask Mikasa to walk with me. In fact I think I will confront this man. 

 

I take my usual path, only making few turns on the road until I reach the only crosswalk in my short trip. I walk across once the light turns red and I slow down when I reach the other side. This is about the point where I run into him. I look around until I see the shorter man in all black walking in my direction. I take in a deep breath as we both walk closer to one another. 

 

Closer and closer our eyes meet and I see the usual sadness in his eyes. I let him pass by me as usual.

 

_I just couldn't do it! No I have to!_

I quickly turn around and grab onto the man's jacket. 

 

The man turns around with astounding speed and I quickly let got of him. I look (down) at him and he looks (up) at me with a look of desperation and longing. His eyes quickly search my face as if expecting something of me. 

 

"Um...I..." I was at a loss of words. Even though I knew I should just turn around and leave, I couldn't bring myself to do so. I need to say something, anything. 

 

"I...like your cravat. Where did you get it?" _Stupid! Stupid! Why did I say that out of every other thing that was possible?_

 

The man's frantic expression turns into a dull look as his gaze shifts to the floor. I don't know why but I have the feeling that's not what he wanted to hear. 

"It...it was a gift." _Oh_. Well, That conversation was short lived. 

"What...what's you're name?" I was determined to keep this conversation going. 

"Levi." I smile at the man, Levi. 

That sounded very familiar but I can't quite pin point where I've heard it...

"I'm Eren. I just thought I'd talk to you since I pass by you just about every day."

 

Levi turns away and mumble something that sounded like 'I already know' but that couldn't have been right. Could it? 

 

"I have to go. It was nice finally getting to know who you were." 

 

I walk away from the man, toward my home. 

 

_Levi huh...what an interesting name._

 

*•*•*•*

 

*one year later* 

 

"You need me to walk you home? You haven't asked in a while." 

I smile at Mikasa as I get my stuff ready to leave my shift. 

 

"No, thanks though." 

 

I quickly leave, excited to run into Levi yet again. About a year ago I had made the decision of talking to him which lead to me gaining the knowledge of him name. I never told anyone that I had spoken to him so it was my own little secret to keep. 

Every time we passed each other our conversations would get longer and longer each day. What started out as a few simple 'hi's' that's were exchanged, turned to complete sentences of 'how was your day?' And 'what's new?' 

 

We recently made an agreement that each time we ran into each other we had to tell the other a fact about ourselves. Today I was going to I tell Levi about my new boyfriend Jean. _That counted as a fact right?_ One day I would want to introduce the two to each other. 

 

"Hey Levi!" 

 

The man looked up at me, smirking at my childish smile. I started to notice that his sad looks started to turn into a soft one, no longer making me feel like I had just killed his cat or something. 

 

"Hello, brat. Anything new?" 

 

I look at the floor blushing at the thought. "Actually yeah. I got a...um." 

I don't know why I was so scared of telling him, it's just Levi. "I got a boyfriend..." 

 

I look up at Levi and the sad expression I hadn't seen in months was on his face. He clears his throat and his expression goes to a stoic state. "Congrats." 

 

He starts to walk again and I watch as he gets further and further away. 

"Wait! What about you?! You haven't told me how your day was!" He doesn't stop walking but he turns his head slightly to look back at me and I gasp when I see a single tear fall down his cheek. 

 

*•*•*•*

 

*One year later*

 

Most days on my way home I hadn't seen Levi. Sometimes we would run into each other but it would be just the exchange of "hey, Levi." And "hm." It was obvious that he wasn't planning on having conversations with me anymore so I just stopped acknowledging him all together. Here we are again, back to day one. Where he would just stair at me with sadness as we walked past each other's in opposite directions. 

 

Until one day. 

 

As I came down the usual street I saw Levi, wearing his same dark jacket, the only light clothing on him, the white cravat. Out of nervousness I play with the golden band around my ring finger wanting to look anywhere but at him. Despite that, I look at him and he looks at me, but he stops. Him stopping caused my footing to falter. _Did...he notice?_ I wanted to keep Jean proposing to me a secret since he acted so crushed once I told him I got asked out. 

 

Suddenly, Levi starts coughing into his arm. I would have thought it was the typical cough but he keeps coughing, and eventually falls to his hands and knees still having a coughing fit. My eyes widen in terror and I run up to him. 

 

"Levi! Are you okay?! Oh gosh! I don't know what to do!" I put a hand on his back but he doesn't acknowledge my presence. But I don't blame him. He coughs again but this time, blood sprays onto the concrete below, dribbling down onto his perfectly white cravat. 

 

I grab him by the wrists to prevent him from falling completely to the floor. I accidently roll down one of his sleeves in my struggle of keeping him up and my eyes burn with tears. _He..._

 

His wrists were littered with thin slash marks, some fresh and some old. I bite my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. "When... when did you start this?!" I yell at the coughing man. No this isn't the time. I hurriedly grab my phone and type in three numbers. 

 

It wasn't long before sirens could be heard turning up the street. 

 

*•*•*•* 

*The next day*

 

"I'm here to see Levi Ackerman." I tell the lady at the front desk of the local hospital. 

"One moment please." She momentarily leaves but quickly returns to lead to me Levi's room. 

 

I walk in and run up to the side of his bed. Levi turns to me and I grab one of his hands. "I'm sorry." I say to him. 

 

"For what? This isn't your fault." 

 

He looks away from me in favor of the hospital room's window. We just stay like this for a few moments. Levi sighs and turns back to me. "Do you mind if I tell you a story?" 

 

"No. Go ahead." 

 

He looks up at the ceiling, then closes his eyes before speaking. 

 

"There was once a bitter man who was all alone in life. His family was gone and his friends has long since left him. He found joy in nothing and was just about done with life. Until one day, a light shines down on his darkened life, offering him another chance. It was the closest the man had gotten to another person. Ever. 

This new person changed his life completely, and meant the world to him. He wasn't willing to ever give him up or let him go. Life seemed to want to give that older man a second chance at living happily. But oh, was he wrong. One day that man's light in this dark world was badly injured in an accident. He had the choice of either having that light leave forever, or for him to stay, but not remember his existence. Obviously he didn't want the thing most important to him to leave so he chose the latter of the two. That man had tried as best he could to become noticed once again by his shining light, but days and eventually months had passed and he wasn't getting any closer. He always would just watch from a distance or walk past him, trying to look into the boy's eyes in seek of recognition. Up until the day that boy grabbed his coat sleeve and introduced himself. Ever since that moment he believed that maybe he could just re build their relationship, since he had done it once."

 

Levi pauses and takes a deep breath. 

 

"But life is cruel. His light had already been stolen and claimed by another. Their relationship started to slowly crumble away until it was just as bad as it was when they first started. With him just watching from a distance. The man became a mess. A mess of tears and depression. He even started...cutting himself. It got to the point where his depression and stress got him extremely sick. 

 

There's no way the man could get his light back. Especially now that he's engaged." Levi squeezes the hand I had in his. 

 

I didn't hold back the tears that were stinging at my eyes. It didn't take long for me realize who this story was about. I can't believe I had no idea...

Who else knew about this? Did I really have an amnesia problem a while back?! 

 

I sob loudly at the thought, placing my face on Levi's bed side. Still crying I stand up to place a kiss on Levi's cheek. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

 

"It's-" Levi starts to cough again to the same point he had yesterday. 

 

Suddenly a nurse is in the room pushing me out of the way. "You have to leave." 

 

"No. No! I need to stay with Levi!" I scream and fight against the other workers that came in to drag me out. Tears were still falling freely and I probably looked insane to the people in the waiting rooms but I didn't care. I fall to my knees when I'm dragged out completely. "I'm sorry!" I scream with my face in my hands. "Please forgive me!" 

 

*•*•*•* 

 

*The next day* 

 

Levi passed away the next day. When I had heard the news I could hardly believe it. I pushed passed the doctors in the halls of the hospital and ran to Levi's room. It was empty. 

 

My hand fly's to my mouth and I cry, falling to my knees. I have to be dragged about by the nurses yet again, but this time I didn't fight back. 

 

I was supposed to be his never dying light and he was supposed to be mine. I regret that I didn't know this sooner. I would have spoken to him more. I would have actually helped him. But no. Like he said, life is never fair. I was never going to see him again. When I walk home from work every day I'll always be alone. I'll never be able to greet the man who always stared.


End file.
